


Study of a Figure (facing the artist)

by Marsipaani



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Artist Iwaizumi, Model Oikawa, Nonbinary Oikawa, Other, Rating May Change, Trans Character, adding more characters as I go, lots of art stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsipaani/pseuds/Marsipaani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iwaizumi Hajime is an art student who needs to come up with a subject for his final exhibition. Luckily, one day he collides with one, quite literally. But how do you paint a model with the same kind of emotion as the old masters, when you know that their models were usually their lovers as well?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Study of a Figure (facing the artist)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started to write this Artist/Model AU a while ago and kind of forgot about it, and then I found most of this first chapter on my computer today and felt like finishing it. I'm kind of really into the idea of this story, even though I have like a hundred unfinished fics already. Anyway...
> 
> In this fic Hajime is from Tokyo and played in Nekoma, and Ushijima played in Seijou and was the ace there. Otherwise everyone is in the same team as in canon.
> 
> Here we go, happy reading!

Hajime was walking to his figure drawing class, balancing his huge sketchbook awkwardly under his arm. It was almost the end of May, the first day after a long and cold spring when it really felt like summer. Hajime had considered skipping this class and going for a run in the park instead, but eventually his sense of responsibility had won. He really needed to pass the figure drawing in order to complete his baccalaureate, and besides he still didn’t know what works he’d show in his university’s exhibition that was only two months away. He needed to come up with something, and quick.  
  
In the doorway someone bumped on him, making him drop his sketchbook. They seemed to be in a hurry even though there was still ten minutes before the class would start. They must have been another student, even though Hajime didn’t remember ever seeing them here. The person stared at Hajime like they knew him, and Hajime felt a spark of recognition, even though he couldn’t remember where he’d seen them before.  
  
The boy, or girl, or most likely neither, was wearing a pale blue summer dress, worn sneakers and carrying a canvas bag with ”I want to believe” hand painted on it in English. There was a faint blush on their cheeks and their light brown hair looked like it had been carefully styled to seem elegantly windswept. They uttered a surprisingly informal greeting, to which Hajime, glancing up from crouching to pick up his sketchbook, was too stunned to reply.  
  
He was sure he’d remember if he had met someone like that before. He found himself staring at the stranger’s muscular legs as they strode on, disappearing quickly behind the corner.  
  
Hajime was first to enter the classroom, as usual. Art students were always fashionably late, to the point when even some teachers arrived five minutes late, because there was no point in starting the lesson with only one third of the class present. He briefly wondered where the stranger had gone, but maybe they weren’t on to this class after all. It was just that there was usually nothing else in this building late in the afternoon.  
  
Hajime chose himself an easel, one of the more steady ones, and a place where there most likely wouldn’t be anyone behind or in front of him. The spot was next to a small table where he could place his ink bottle and brushes. Most students liked to sketch with charcoal or pencil, but Hajime preferred bold, black lines, the flowing feeling of painting. He was hoping most of the class would be spent doing croquis, because it felt like today he’d lack the patience to do longer poses.  
  
One by one the other students started arriving. Some looked like they were hangover at four in the afternoon on Wednesday, which was another common trait in the student body. Sometimes Hajime wondered if other students had only internalized the lifestyle of the artists, but not the hard work that it took to become one. On the other hand, it was not like Hajime was such a good student either, not even having started his baccalaureate work yet. And it was not like he didn’t like partying as well, but at least he had stopped going out in the middle of the week after the train wreck that was his first year in the university.  
  
Finally the teacher arrived with the model on tow. Hajime mentally kicked himself: he should have known the attractive stranger was doing the modeling. Although their models were usually very ordinary looking, relatively pretty young women with slim figures and average size breasts, this person definitely had an the kind of air about them that they were meant to be looked at. It was not like there was anything wrong with proportionate women: his favorite model so far was like that, but she was also a karateka, which meant she was able to hold still even in the most difficult stances. Nevertheless Hajime was exited to draw a different kind of body this time. And he couldn’t wait to see all that muscle.  
  
Hajime wondered if this model was a dancer. They had had a few of those, as well. Hajime hadn’t liked the latest one: the guy had tried way too hard poses, and his hands and feet had started to drop almost as soon as they had started to draw him. There had been something arrogant about the way he posed: it was annoying to know that the model wanted to look hot in the drawings. Hajime had enjoyed drawing his suffering expression in great detail, the moment when he had realized he’d have to keep his hands up for another three minutes.  
  
The teacher turned the heater on, and the stranger took off their dark blue bathrobe and got up on the small stand. The teacher said they’d do some semi-quick sketches from one to five minutes first, and move to longer poses after that. Hajime dipped his brush to the ink.  
  
First, when there was less time, the model took more difficult postures with raised hands or resting all their weight on one foot, saving the more relaxed ones to long poses. Hajime liked the way they carried themself: all the stances looked purposeful. It was like they were subtly expressing some emotion all the time, the line of their shoulders going from determined to defeated, the arc of their arms sometimes looking joyful, sometimes threatening, almost like they were about to hit something. It was truly rare to have a model with so much creativity: usually they just sticked with twisting their limbs to different positions, alternating between standing up and sitting or laying down.  
  
It was warm in the classroom, and the model’s skin was slowly reddening with the heater blowing hot air right at them. Hajime found himself wishing he could photograph them in addition to sketching. He wanted to capture the small changes on their face, the way they tried to blow an annoying lock of hair off their nose. Camera is faster than human eye, and Hajime was suddenly greedy to see this person’s expressions even on the fleeting moments that were over before he could notice them.  
  
The model changed position again, and Hajime forgot himself, lost in tracing the muscles of their back.  
  
”Nice work, Iwaizumi-kun, as usual,” he suddenly heard a lowered voice from behind him. He startled, causing the brush jump and splatter a few drops of ink on his picture.  
  
”Thank you, sensei,” he answered, waiting for the critique that always came after praising.  
  
”I find it a bit too nice, actually,” the teacher continued, still very quietly in order to not break anyone’s concentration. ”You should get off your comfort zone more. Don’t draw what you think is there, draw what you’re actually seeing.”  
  
Hajime nodded.  
  
”Like that smooth line you have here. Take a closer at the model’s back. It’s a bit crooked isn’t it? Do you see how that left shoulder blade seems larger than the right?”  
  
Hajime’s gaze followed the lines of model’s back. The teacher was right. ”Draw what you see, even if you don’t believe your eyes. Human bodies are never perfectly symmetrical.”  
  
The teacher’s phone beeped. ”All right everyone! That was the last croquis. Let’s take a ten minute break and then do a single pose for the remaining hour and half.”  
  
The chatter started immediately. The students were flipping through each other’s sketches. Some where eating packed lunches. A small crowd had gathered around the garbage bin, because everyone needed to empty their sharpeners. Many sneaked out for a smoke. Hajime didn’t know anyone on this class: nearly everyone he knew had done all the compulsory figure drawing on the first year, so he was the only one who had been forced to attend to this summer course. He had simply never managed to be present on the class at 8 am on Monday, having just moved out from his parents and quitted playing volleyball, making it possible for him to do what he wanted, which had apparently been partying all weekend, and week too more often that he cared to admit, for the first time in his life.  
  
Hajime went to rinse the ink from his brushes. Despite his earlier reluctance, he was waiting eagerly for the long pose. He was feeling a little bit bold, and decided to use watercolors. It was more difficult than other methods, but today Hajime had been more confident in his drawings than usual. He wanted to make a good-looking picture, even if it was only a sketch for some compulsory class. A model that beautiful wasn’t to be wasted in some half assed scribbles.  
  
The model was wearing the bathrobe again. They were stretching and drinking from their bottle that looked like it had been bought from some fancy sport equipment store downtown. Hajime wondered again what was their sport, and weather or not they were professional in it. The routined way they stretched reminded Hajime of the endless practices in high school. The feeling was bittersweet.  
  
Some models were more shy than others. Sometimes models sat purposefully so that their genitals were not in plain sight for most artists, especially during the longer poses. This was not the case for this model. They sat down on a chair with their feet spread out, a relaxed feeling on the curve of their back and the way they were resting their head on their hand. They also stared right at Hajime with a challenging look in their eyes.  
  
Where had he seen that look before?  
  
Hajime had been more awkward in the beginning of his studies, almost blushing when he had drawn a naked model the first time. Now he found himself painting the details of the model’s penis without even thinking about it. It was just color and form, something that was a part of the figure sitting in front of him.  
  
The next time teacher walked behind Hajime, he didn’t say anything. That was the best praise you could get: there was nothing to criticize.  
  
An idea had started to form in Hajime’s head. He tried not to think about it too hard in order to not break his concentration, as he moved on to shading his painting with dark blue tones that contrasted nicely with the peachy shades he had chosen for the skin. The blue was almost exactly the same as the model’s bathrobe.

 

_July 27th:_   
_– Am I your muse?_   
_– Yeah, you inspire me. Like every time you open your mouth I think of new, creative ways to make you shut up._   
_– Why are you so mean!_   
_– Shut up, you._

 

  
  
Tooru had been modeling nude for figure drawing classes since they were eighteen years old. It had been around the same time as their insecurities about their body had started multiplying. Tooru had always thought of their body only as a tool: it was good for volleyball when properly trained, and good for attracting people they wanted to get a favor from when properly presented. But it hadn’t felt like it truly belonged to them even since before puberty.  
  
Tooru had found themself thinking what it would be like to have a bit fuller hips, to accompany their already narrow waist. A rounder face with a less angular chin. They hadn’t know yet what that feeling was called, or that there were other people who had it too. Tooru wanted to hide their sharp bones and hard muscle under soft cardigans and light scarves and floaty skirts, and that’s what they had done, if only in the privacy of their room.  
  
So it would seem like being naked in a room full of people staring at them was the last thing the teenage Tooru with gender dysphoria would want to do. For reasons they didn’t even understand themself, they had nevertheless answered to a job offer in a local newspaper: ”Looking for a model for artists for a figure drawing class. Call for more details.” There was no way newspaper would have printed a request to work naked, was what the woman had said on the phone when Tooru called. And that it was great they were a guy, since their last model had been a girl. Back then Tooru hadn’t yet started to correct people, so they had gritted their teeth and taken the job. The salary was so good they’d be able to buy new volleyball shoes after just two or three sessions, and the job was to literally do nothing for two hours, which was more than fine by them.  
  
The day before they had shaved their legs and armpits and chest for the first time. Smooth skin had felt good under their fingers when they spread their new favorite moisturizer on it. They were soft and smelled like pomegranates, afterwards. It was difficult to decide what to do to pubic hair: was it more weird to shave it or not? Did you only shave if you were gonna do porn? In the end Tooru only trimmed the hair with scissors and shaved the edge to sharp line so that it would look clean, or something like that. There weren’t exactly guide books for this sort of thing.  
  
They had spent the evening in front of the mirror in their room, practicing different poses. Despite being an athlete, they couldn’t hold their hands up much longer than a couple of minutes, or stand on their toes for very long. They tried to come up with beautiful poses, the god-like kind that you saw renaissance paintings. It was something they did on daily bases: trying very hard to look good without looking like you tried at all. This was the same thing, except naked.  
  
The next morning in during the practice Ushijima had asked them about the shaved legs. Tooru said it was for a modeling gig, an answer which seemed to satisfy not only the vice captain, but other, less blunt team members who had been sneaking glances to their legs as well. Tooru had already decided to keep shaving, and they were glad to have an excuse.  
  
The art class had been small, only ten or so students, some high schoolers or even younger and the oldest ones seemed to be already retired, having started a new hobby in their senior years. The atmosphere was relaxing in a way that Tooru had never felt before: the artists were joking around about perspective errors and how difficult it was to get the anatomy right, comparing different papers and pencils and techniques, seemingly not competing with each other at all. Maybe it was because there were so many old people around, that everyone was able to just do their own thing at their own pace.  
  
After the initial terror of ”everyone here is looking at my naked body”, Tooru had started to enjoy the posing. They tried to remember all the beautiful stances they had practiced, imagining themself as a Michelangelo’s statue whenever keeping still was almost unbearably hard. They were made of marble, so there was no way their muscles were growing tired, skin itching or leg or arm falling asleep.  
  
When there was only fifteen minutes left, the teacher had asked the class if they had any requests for the model. A small, blonde girl, whom Tooru later learned was Karasuno’s new manager, had stuttered awkwardly: ”Oikawa-san is so beautiful all the time! And… and it’s not a problem, Oikawa-san is amazing model, but… I want to draw something ugly too.” She had nearly lost her courage with everyone’s eyes on her. ”Sorry! I didn’t mean to say Oikawa-san should be ugly! But I just want to see… a pose that doesn’t look graceful. You don’t need to look perfect for me to draw, do you understand?”  
  
Tooru nodded. They thought they did, even though it was hard to put words to what it was that they understood. ”Like this?” they asked, sitting down with a slumped pose, not caring if their stomach formed small rolls, not caring that their shoulders looked awkward and crooked when they sat like this.  
  
The girl nodded, blushing. ”Yeah,” she said.  
  
Later, at home, Tooru had thought that maybe to artists it wasn’t important what the model looked like, they didn’t care if they had flawless skin or beautiful muscles. A good artist draws all kinds of things, all kinds of people, and any kind of body, any kind of pose was equally interesting to them. It was liberating, to know that there was a room full of people who had looked at their naked body without judging them for their appearances. Whatever their body would look like in ten, twenty or fifty years, weather or not they’d be deemed as too masculine or too feminine or too much something else, they’d always at least be interesting enough to be an artist’s subject.

 

  
_June 1st:_   
_– So, what do you want me to do?_   
_– I don’t know, just try to be like you normally would._   
_– Like this?_   
_– Fuck you._

 

  
The long pose ended, and Tooru stretched their tired muscles. Nekoma’s wing spiker, stared at them even now when they had stopped painting. Tooru wondered if he had recognized them already. The wing spiker walked up to them as soon as they had put the robe back on.  
  
”Hello, I’m Iwaizumi Hajime, what’s your name?” he introduced himself bluntly, offering his hand.  
  
Tooru sighed as they shook hands. ”I know who you are.” It wasn’t a lie even though they hadn’t remembered the name. ”And I’m honestly quite hurt you don’t remember me!”  
  
Iwaizumi blinked. ”How do you know me?” he asked.  
  
”You’re Nekoma’s wing spiker, of course I remember you,” Tooru said.  
  
Iwaizumi’s eyes widened. ”You’re… you’re Oikawa Tooru! I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you!”  
  
Tooru sighed again. ”It’s the skirt isn’t it. Every time I put it on it’s like I become a completely different person…”  
  
Iwaizumi snorted. ”Or maybe it’s because I didn’t exactly get to see you naked back then.”  
  
”So you wanted to?” Tooru’s cursed their mouth for moving without their permission.  
  
”Maybe,” Iwaizumi replied with a smirk.  
  
Tooru blushed, which happened humiliatingly often. They really needed to stop being embarrassed every time someone actually flirted back, it defeated the purpose.  
  
”Anyway,” Iwaizumi continued, ”There was something I wanted to ask you.”  
  
”Shoot,” Tooru said, glad that they were changing the subject.  
  
”I was wondering if you’d like to be my model for my baccalaureate work. I’d pay you, not as much as you get form these classes but…”  
  
Tooru listened with growing annoyance. They were certain this was another project about gender, something where they’d ”transform into a woman” by putting some padding and make up on, or some other boring stuff art students had been interested in lately. They had always declined offers to be featured in such works, for no other reason than it was annoying when their gender was the only thing people cared about.  
  
”What do you have in mind?” they asked regardless.  
  
Hajime scratched the hairs on the back of his head. ”I’m not quite sure yet. I mean I’m interested in classical portraits, and I’d like to maybe recreate the poses and the expressions the models have in those. I often imagine what the artists and models talk about during the sessions, like what are the models smiling at, or why do they look so bored… so I’d probably both paint and photograph you, maybe outside and with clothes on, for a few hours at a time. What do you say?”  
  
Tooru thought of this. ”Do I have to wear period clothes?” they asked.  
  
”Nah, I want to recreate the feel of the portraits but like in a modern age? So no.” Iwaizumi’s stoic expression was starting to melt into a more relaxed one.  
  
”Damn, I’d look amazing in a corset, but okay, yeah, I’ll do it.” Tooru pondered awhile. ”I only have Sundays off though, will that be okay?”  
  
Iwaizumi’s face broke into a big grin. ”Yeah! Yeah that’s really good, I’m so glad!” he exclaimed. ”Thank you so much!”

**Author's Note:**

> When it comes to Oikawa's pronouns, I don't know much Japanese, so I'm not getting into details with that. I'm using "they" as both what they call themself and what other people use of them, because even though Japanese has grammatical gender (unlike my native language Finnish for instance), in my understanding it works very differently than in English and therefore a third person singular pronoun is often not gendered (but not always). So Hajime and everyone else calling Tooru "they" is not a sign of knowing their gender instantly but rather just using the most common pronoun for any person. The discussion about pronouns, like what you can have in English, would involve more detailed knowledge of honorifics/other gender markers in language/customs/culture/etc. than I have, so I won't be writing that, even though Oikawa in this fic will probably have to talk about these things with pretty much everyone they're associated with, if they want them to get it right.
> 
> Yeah also please let me know if something I've written is transphobic or cissexist and I'll make sure to change that!
> 
> Also, I have a [tumblr](http://purukumiprinsessa.tumblr.com/), come to say hi :D


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